Nick Rennison

Presents a biography that offers an account of the life and times of the famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. This biography describes Holmes's influence on the political events of late-nineteenth-century England and his connections to the British criminal underworld. It also depicts his close friendships with key figures of the day.

The Unauthorized Biography

Sherlock Holmes

1922 WAS A YEAR OF GREAT TURBULENCE AND UPHEAVAL. The world had just emerged from a war that had killed millions of people and a global pandemic that had ended the lives of tens of millions more. Its events reverberated throughout the rest of the twentieth century and still affect us today. Empires fell. The Ottoman Empire collapsed after more than six centuries. The British Empire had reached its zenith but its heyday was over. The Irish Free State was declared and demands for independence in India grew. New nations and new politics came into existence. The Soviet Union was officially created and Mussolini's Italy became the first Fascist state. In the USA, Prohibition was at its height. The Hollywood film industry, although rocked by a series of scandals, continued to grow. A new mass medium - radio - was making its presence felt and the BBC was founded. In literature it was the year of peak modernism. Both T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land and James Joyce's Ulysses were first published in full. In society, already changed by the trauma of war and pandemic, the morals of the past seemed increasingly outmoded; new ways of behaving were making their appearance. The Roaring Twenties had begun to roar and the Jazz Age had arrived. In a sequence of vividly written sketches, Nick Rennison conjures up all the drama and diversity of an extraordinary year. CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR 1922: SCENES FROM A TURBULENT YEAR 'Vivid... In this enjoyable slice of popular history, Rennison assembles a month-by-month almanac, including all the most notable moments from science, politics, art and culture' - GUARDIAN 'Fascinating and highly readable ... What a memorable picture Rennison paints for us of what any minute now will be a century ago. He picks out salient events from all over the world... It's the juxtaposing of those kinds of political events with quirky, unexpected items... that make this book the opposite of soporific' - DAILY MAIL 'Entertaining and thoroughly readable canter through the events of a century ago... Fascinating' - OBSERVER 'This is a delightful book, and Rennison's selection is intelligent and lively. He has an eye for the significant detail and an agreeably dry tone... I hope Rennison has a 1923 book already well in hand and is even now researching a 1924 one. This 1922 book should please those who are well-versed in history, but it will also be a treat for those for whom the past is another country' - SCOTSMAN 'Its eclecticism works brilliantly... a tremendous, beguiling read' - WILLIAM BOYD

Scenes from a Turbulent Year

1922

Kenneth McLeish

This text features more than 350 major authors and 4000 books. For each author a short article on style, influences, settings, theme and salient works is followed by a Read On section directing the reader to similar books by other authors.

Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide

Stephen E. Andrews

An up to date guide to the best of fantasy fiction, from Garth Nix to Philip Pullman, from Tolkein to Moorcock.

100 Must-read Fantasy Novels

Travis Elborough

A Traveller’s Year is an anthology of extracts from diaries, journals and letters, two or three for each day of the year, on the subject of travel and exploration. The extracts convey men and women’s experiences of travel and discovery from the sixteenth to the early twenty-first centuries, with an emphasis on the period 1750–1950, the classic era of both European exploration and diary-writing. The authors of the pieces range from famous explorers such as Captains Cook and Scott to modern travel writers journeying through the contemporary world, from people who pushed back the boundaries of geographical knowledge to people who wrote about what they did on their summer holidays. The book includes an introduction, explanatory notes and mini-biographies of all the contributors. Contributors include: Gertrude Bell (woman traveller in the Middle East) James Boswell (travels in Scotland and the Hebrides) William Cobbett (Rural Rides through England) Christopher Columbus (journals of his voyages to America) Charles Darwin (Voyage of the Beagle) Captain James Cook (voyages in the Pacific) Washington Irving (American writer travelled in Europe in first decades of nineteenth century) Edward Lear (landscape painter and nonsense writer produced journals of his travels in Greece, Corsica, Near East etc) Lewis & Clark (journals of famous journey of American exploration) William Morris (wrote a journal of a trip to Iceland in 1870s) Michael Palin (a Python abroad) Mungo Park (African explorer in early nineteenth century) Captain Robert Falcon Scott (doomed journey to South Pole) Evelyn Waugh (diaries of 1930s travels in Mediterranean and beyond) William John Wills (explorer of Australia)

365 Days of Travel Writing in Diaries, Journals and Letters

A Traveller's Year

The ghost of a poor Afghan returns to haunt the doctor who once amputated his hand. A mysterious and malignant force inhabits a room in an ancestral home and attacks all who sleep in it. A man who desecrates an Indian temple is transformed into a ravening beast. A castle in the Tyrol is the setting for an aristocratic murderer's apparent resurrection. In the stories in this collection compiled by Nick Rennison, horrors from beyond the grave and other dimensions visit the everyday world and demand to be investigated. The Sherlocks of the supernatural - from William Hope Hodgson's 'Thomas Carnacki, the Ghost Finder', to Alice and Claude Askew's 'Aylmer Vance' - are those courageous souls who risk their lives and their sanity to pursue the truth about ghosts, ghouls and things that go bump in the night. The period between 1890 and 1930 was a Golden Age for the occult detective. Famous authors like Kipling and Conan Doyle wrote stories about them, as did less familiar writers such as the occultist and magician Dion Fortune and Henry S. Whitehead, a friend of H. P. Lovecraft and fellow-contributor to the pulp magazines of the period. Nick Rennison, editor of The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes and The Rivals of Dracula, has chosen fifteen tales from that era to raise the hair and chill the spines of modern readers.

Stories from the Golden Age of Occult Detectives

Supernatural Sherlocks

Sherlock Holmes is the most famous fictional detective ever created. He and Dr Watson will forever be associated with the smog-filled streets of late 19th and early 20th century London. Yet the years between 1890 and 1914 were a godlen age for English magazines, most of which published detective fiction. The Holmes stories spawned countless imitators. Shelock Holmes did have his rivals and, as this collection of short stories shows, many of their adventures were as exciting and entertaining as those of the master himself.

An Anthology of Crime Stories 1890-1914

The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

A London Year is an anthology of short diary entries, one or more for each day of the year, which, taken together, provides an impressionistic portrait of life in the city from Tudor times to the twenty-first century. This ebook edition, with its own distinct cover, has been optimised for the digital reader. A hyperlinked contents page makes it easy for the reader to dip in and out of the book while each 'page' is dedicated to a separate day. To further improve formatting, the illustrations from the printed edition have been omitted. We promise this does not detract from the reading experience. This ebook serves as the perfect accompaniment to the print edition. There are more than two hundred featured writers, with a short biography for each. The most famous diarist of all - Samuel Pepys - is there, as well as some of today’s finest diarists like Alan Bennett and Chris Mullin. There are coronations and executions, election riots and zeppelin raids, duels, dust-ups and drunken sprees, among everyday moments like Brian Eno cycling in Kilburn or George Eliot walking on Wimbledon Common. Vividly evoking moments in the lives of Londoners in the past, providing snapshots of the city’s inhabitants at work, at play, in pursuit of money, sex, entertainment, pleasure and power, the ebook of A London Year is the perfect read for all who live in or love this eternal, ever-changing city.

Daily Life in the Capital in Diaries, Journals and Letters

London Year

Deciding what to read next when you've just finished an unputdownable novel can be a daunting task. The Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide features hundreds of authors and thousands of titles, with navigation features to lead you on a rich journey through some of the best and most interesting books that have been published. This greatly expanded edition also includes the latest contemporary authors and landmark novels. An accessible and easy-to-read guide that no serious book lovers should be without.

Discover Your Next Great Read

Bram Stoker's Dracula, still the most famous of all vampire stories, was first published in 1897. But the bloodsucking Count was not the only member of the undead to bare his fangs in the literature of the period. Late Victorian and Edwardian fiction is full of vampires and this anthology of scary stories introduces modern readers to fifteen of them. Including works by both well-known writers of the supernatural such as M R James and E F Benson and less familiar authors too, The Rivals of Dracula is a collection of classic tales to chill the blood and tingle the spine.

The Rivals of Dracula

Why did London Underground once employ a one-legged man to ride up and down the escalators at Earl's Court tube station? What did Hitler plan to do with Nelson's Column? Why is London's only medieval mummy a prostitute named Clarice la Claterballock? How did a beer flood in Tottenham Court Road drown nine people? Where can you see a pair of Queen Victoria's knickers? Containing chapters covering London past and present; buildings and streets; famous and unexpected Londoners; arts, literature and crime; plus much much more, the 180 lists will amaze, amuse and inform. More than simply a keepsake for tourists, every self-respecting Londoner needs this book.

The Book Of Lists London

Bram Stoker’s Dracula, still the most famous of all vampire stories, was first published in 1897. But the bloodsucking Count was not the only member of the undead to bare his fangs in the literature of the period. Late Victorian and Edwardian fiction is full of vampires and this anthology of scary stories introduces modern readers to fifteen of them. A travel writer in Sweden unleashes something awful from an ancient mausoleum. A psychic detective battles a vampire that has taken refuge in an Egyptian mummy. A nightmare becomes reality in the tower room of a gloomy country house. The Rivals of Dracula is a collection of classic tales to chill the blood and tingle the spine and includes works from authors Alice & Claude Askew, EF Benson, Mary Cholmondeley, F Marion Crawford, Ulric Daubeny, Augustus Hare, Julian Hawthorne, E and H Heron, MR James, Vernon Lee, Richard Marsh, Hume Nisbet, Frank Norris, Phil Robinson and HB Marriott Watson.

Stories from the Golden Age of Gothic Horror

Colette Bryce

Neil Johnstone

Waterstone's Guide to Scottish Books

Contains a selection of writing, with 100 of the best titles reviewed and a further 500 recommended. This book also allows you to browse by theme, and includes 'a reader's fast-guide to the classics', past award-winners and book club recommendations.

100 Must-read Classic Novels

Richard Shephard

Want to become a crime novel buff, or expand your reading in your favourite genre? This is a good place to start! From the publishers of the popular, Good Reading Guide comes a rich selection of the some of the finest crime novels ever published. With 100 of the best titles fully reviewed and a further 500 recommended, you'll quickly become an expert on the world of crime. The book also allows you to browse by theme, includes 'a reader's fast-guide to the world of crime fiction' as well listing the top 10 crime characters and their creators, award winners and book club recommendations.

100 Must-read Crime Novels

Was there ever a real Robin Hood? Nick Rennison looks at the candidates who have been proposed over the years, from petty thieves to Knights Templar, before moving on to examine the many ways in which Robin Hood has been portrayed in literature and on the screen. He began as the hero of dozens of late medieval ballad, and more recently has been portrayed as everything from proto-socialist man of the people to anarchist thug. As the twenty-first century nears the end of its second decade, Robin Hood is still very much with us.

Short History Of Robin Hood

According to Apsley Cherry-Garrard, one of the men who went to Antarctica with Captain Scott, 'Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time that has ever been devised. ' Despite this there has never been a shortage of volunteers willing to endure the bad times in pursuit of the glory that polar exploration sometimes brings. Nick Rennison's compelling book tells the memorable stories of the men and women who have risked their lives by entering the white wastelands of the Arctic and the Antarctic, from the compelling tales of Scott, Shacklet on and Amundsen, to lesser known heroes such as Fridtjof Nansen and Robert Peary. A Short History of Polar Exploration also looks at the hold that the polar regions have often had on the imaginations of artists and writers in the last two hundred years examining the pain tings, films and literature that they have inspired.

The Pocket Essentials Guide

A Short History of Polar Exploration

Novels which transform our ideas about human possibilities, biographies which celebrate the achievements of extraordinary individuals, polemical works of non-fiction which oblige us to alter our views of the world or of human society: all of us can remember reading at least one book which made us think about the world anew. Here, the author of the popular Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide, selects the very best books which may or may not have changed the world, but which have certainly changed the lives of thousands of people who have read them. Some examples of titles included: Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - a poignant recording of the author's triumph over the obstacles of being black and poor in a racist society. Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist. Santiago's meeting with the alchemist opens his eyes to the true values of life, love and suffering The Diary of Anne Frank Half a century later the story of a teenager coming to maturity in the most terrible of circumstances remains profoundly moving. Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet Gibran's poetic essays reveal his thoughts on everything in life from love and marriage to the enigmas of birth and death. Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Pirsig's narrator creates a philosophical masterpiece that has the power to change lives.

100 Must-read Life-Changing Books

Inside 100 Must-Read Science Fiction Novels you'll find: an extended introduction to the genre, its background and history; 100 titles highlighted A-Z by author, with 500 'read-on' recommendations; 'read on a theme' categories; and lists of award winners, book club recommendations and film adaptations.

100 Must-read Science Fiction Novels

Want to become a classic novel buff, or expand your reading of some of the finest novels ever published? With 100 of the best titles fully reviewed and a further 500 recommended, you'll quickly set out on a journey of discovery.

Nick Rennison

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